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Saturday, August 30, 2014

Please scroll down for the newest Artist's Play Room Linky and enter your wonderful, creative artwork throughout this upcoming week.If you haven't read the rules & guidelines, please go here. If you've landed here after this challenge has been completed but would like to participate in a current or future Artist's Play Room Challenge, just either click on the APR button in the sidebar or click here and you'll be taken to the latest APR Challenge!

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Saturday, August 23, 2014

Please scroll down for the newest Artist's Play Room Linky and enter your wonderful, creative artwork throughout this upcoming week.If you haven't read the rules & guidelines, please go here. If you've landed here after this challenge has been completed but would like to participate in a current or future Artist's Play Room Challenge, just either click on the APR button in the sidebar or click here and you'll be taken to the latest APR Challenge!

Are you having trouble using the Mr. Linky to add your submissions to APR? Well here's some help! Just click on HELP and you'll be taken to my Linky Help Page. Cool, huh? I've got your back!Best,

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Hiya. Have I made it clear in the past how much I love color?? I really, really, REALLY do. Just seeing all the colors on these Daniel Smith Watercolor Dot sheets made me giddy. Even better, they were almost half price at Wet Paint the other day so I totally jumped on the opportunity to test all of the 238 colors Daniel Smith makes. You can get sheets that cover only 66 colors but when I read about the smaller selection, it wasn't their most popular colors (which is what I would have done) but actually a selection of all kinds of colors including their iridescent colors. I totally ignored the last page with all their iridescent/duochrome/interference colors (I have a bunch of Twinkling H2O's and Silks from Color Arte) so it would have been a waste of some of the only 66 dots.

)Quinacridone colors from Daniel Smith)

Over the last month or so I've been studying color and palettes and noticed how many artists I respect use Daniel Smith watercolors. I've realized that Daniel Smith, M. Graham, Sennelier and Schmincke are the most popular watercolor brands. I eliminate Sennelier because although the honey they use makes the paint spectacular, it also causes the paint to not totally dry in a palette so it stays sticky. I know that Schmincke makes the absolute best half and full pan watercolors if you want to purchase already dried watercolor paint. I hear they rewet like a dream but I have really fallen in love with the colors and brightness of Daniel Smith. I also know Daniel Smith made the first (and largest selection) or Quinacridone colors. I LOVE how bright they are! So, I decided that brand would be my main source of watercolors.

I then had to learn which of the 238 colors I wanted. Daunting task, indeed. First, I studied a bunch of artist's palettes. I looked at Roz Stendahl, Liz Steel, Dion Dior, Brenda Swenson, Jane Blundell and Jane LaFazio among others. I then decided that I wanted the brightest colors that would successfully mix together. I love bright color and I know that if I want to dull down a bright color there will always be a color in my palette to help me do that. I also knew that I needed to have more yellows in my palette and I really wanted to avoid most of the opaque pigments if I could. That eliminated the cadmiums all together and it helped eliminate a bunch of other colors when I used the handy Key on the bottom of each DS Dot sheet. It tells you all about opaqueness, granulation (whether a pigment stays suspended or falls out of it's binder when used), staining ability (whether you can "pick up" a color and blot it away if you want to) and finally lightfastness, one of the most important things in a color. The lightfastness of colors (how fugitive it is when exposed to light or even just air) really helped me eliminate some colors I was gravitating to. Like Alizarin Crimson and Opera pink, both really popular colors, but they're fugitive and fade in light.

All of the above helped whittle down my color choices to something manageable but it did still leave me with many, many choices. So the only way to make decisions is to break it down to smaller pieces. I know I wanted cool and warm choices in each primary color and I knew that I had twenty-four spaces in my Whiskey Painter's Master Palette (to be purchased from Wet Paint in the near future with the Daniel Smith watercolors, read: Christmas!) Ok, so I knew I'd have at least six colors there. But I also knew that I wanted to have a broad selection each of yellow, red and blue, the primaries. So really, that meant that at least nine and probably twelve of the spaces would be taken up. Then I knew I had some favorite colors that were going to be personal choices (potter's pink, buff titanium, lunar violet, maybe even payne's grey), so that would get me to about sixteen. I'd have eight spaces left to fill in "gaps" I saw or extra colors that really intrigued me like more quinacridones! Oh, and also, I knew I'd want a viridian type color and a sap green for convenience. Now we're up to eighteen plus extra quins. So far, so good.

I knew I wanted a couple turquoise colors because I LOVE turquoise and I'd probably add a brown color and a purple of some sort for ease of use. I mean, you should learn to mix colors yourself, that's what makes a good painter but ease of use also has to fit in there too, it's a balance. If you're keeping up with me, we're at about twenty-one or twenty-two colors. That's close enough, the other colors, I'm sure, will fill themselves in easily. So, on to actually choosing primaries, warm and cool... I did a spread sheet to see what colors everyone seemed to like and, of course, I tested all the 238 dots! I also added in my own slant on color that I'd developed in the last couple of months as I tested my temporary travel palette and surprisingly, ended up with less conflict than I thought I would. I mean, geez, I had potentially like two hundred colors to choose from, lol. But taking out colors I didn't respond to, colors that didn't have the qualities I was looking for (lightfast, transparent, bright & gorgeous!) and colors that seemed like I could mix by having enough of a range of reds, blues and yellows made the choice much, much easier than I thought.(Below are more examples of the the palettes from the artists I've mentioned)

Transparent Pyrrol Orange (when I learned that this was a good warm red I jumped on it like a chicken on a june bug! I LOVE it's brightness and it gave me an excuse to use it)

Pyrrol Red (ended up being the one I liked the most for a good red)

Cool Reds:

Quin Red OR Quin Pink (I'm getting both, not sure which one I'll like best over time)

Opera Pink(I was SO disappointed when I discovered, in the middle of this process, that my favorite pink ever was totally fugitive, a rating of IV for lightfastness is BAD)

Quin Magenta (such a great color signally and as a mixer, so darn bright itself that it mixes perfectly with my Hansa Yellow and Phthalo blue and Transp. Pyrrol Orange to make spectacular complimentary colors, go to Jane Blundell to see what I mean)

Warm Yellows:

New Gamboge (I knew I needed a darker yellow than the cadmium I'm using and I knew I wanted to get rid of the opaque cads anyway so this suggestion from Roz was perfect)

Quin Gold (such a perfect mixing color, I may not need the yellow ochre I have below because of this color but I'm new to this so I hedged my bets and left both in my palette, yellow ochre may be leaving at some point, we'll see)

Cool Yellows:

Hansa Yellow Medium (everyone agrees that this is a perfect near neutral, read: not warm or cool yellow. Roz also suggests Azo Yellow if you prefer)

Warm Blues:

Ultramarine (LOVE this blue, it's granulating which is a plus when using it to do water, it mixes perfectly with burnt Sienna to make a great black and with more Ultramarine than sienna, a beautiful Payne's grey)

Indanthrone Blue (PB60) (I needed a dark blue and this is a favorite everywhere I look and I love it too, beautiful depth... and indigo is opaque so PB60 it is!)

Cool Blues:

Phthalo Blue (Red Shade) (This is almost a neutral blue, read: not warm or cool, and since I love how it fits in the palette and mixes with hanse, Q.Magenta and Trans. Pyrrol Orange I just had to have it. I also believe having more blues makes color mixing easier)

Cerulean Blue (Chromium) (my softer blue, although it is an opaque color, I love it for it's lightness and it's good to have a few opaque colors just like having some colors that granulate, mix it up a little!)

Turquoise/Teal:

Cobalt Teal (Ok, here me now. I LOVE turquoise/ teal. I can't get enough. My personal triad, what I dress in & do my house in is sap green, quin. magenta and turquoise. Nuff said.)

Phthalo Turquoise (Didn't you hear me the first time? See above, lol.)

Extra mixing colors:

Quin Burnt Orange (takes the place of Burnt Sienna in my palette right now. I had two 15ml tubes given to me for free so I intend to use them up before thinking of switching to burnt sienna. BS is a perfect pair with PB60, making the most luscious warm grays ever.)

Yellow Ochre (hedging my bets color. Also, my mom used to paint with it and LOVES it so it stays in the palette for now)

Naphthol Maroon (a good darker color that I can tame some of the bright ones with)

Ease of use colors:

Quin Purple (Love it and want a dark purple, also the more quinacridone colors I can get into my palette, the happier I'll be)

Sepia (has been a favorite since I started learning that ink didn't just have to be blue, black and red! I love a good brown and it makes other rich browns with the addition of quin burnt orange, quin red or transp. pyrrol orange)

Potter's Pink (hard to mix this color, good for many things including skin)

Sap Green (I allowed myself my most common green for it's own color and for mixing)

Lunar Black (I found a black that is TRANSPARENT!!!)

Because I LOVE them Colors:

Lunar Violet (Since I'm not allowing myself my favorite Payne's gray as I can so easily mix it using Ultramarine + Quin Burnt Orange/Burnt Sienna, I decided to allow myself another very beautiful and unusual gray. You'll love it too, WOW.)

Phthalo Green (Blue Shade) (I have always loved viridian but Daniel Smith's kinda sucks, it's really weak so this steps in for viridian, just terrific powerful color and great mixer)

Daniel Smith Dots

Daniel Smith Dots(I only tested a few iridescent/interference colors, they're right lower section)

When choosing a few of the reds/pinks I found myself having the most trouble in my palette creation. When my Opera Pink turned out to be fugitive I was devastated and also a little panicky because I had already finished choosing all the other colors. In fact, I'd done the painting of my new palette and everything, including the fugitive opera in it! I wasn't sure if taking opera out meant that all the quin pinks had to change. One doesn't want to repeat a color too closely, you're wasting valuable real-estate by doing that and I was already being wasteful by hedging my bets between quin gold and yellow ochre. SHeesh!

So, when I looked, I decided to leave the palette the way it was but just take out Opera and replace it with a great purple that I had decided I would mix using all my beautiful blues and quin magenta or quin red. But with Opera officially given it's walking papers I had an open space and oh what a valuable space it is! In went a great purple, Quin purple to be exact. The good thing was I didn't even have the quin violet in there so I wasn't getting colors too close to each other in value, shade or temperature. The one bad thing was that it wasn't a dot on my dot sheets so I couldn't test it or add it into the square where I'd removed (literally) the Opera. So, I mixed it using a tiny bit of phthalo blue and it's closest neighbor, quin violet. Good to go, but it does look a little muddy in the palette as I "lifted Opera first (and Stillman & Birn Zeta paper doesn't like that!) then added the mix on top of that hot mess. Ok, one more SHEESH!!

Value = the lightness or darkness of a colorShade = darkening a color using black or the color's complimentTemperature = warmth or coolness of a color. Reds & yellows are warm, greens & blues are cool.

To learn more about colors and mixing them and everything we've been talking about, Stephen Quiller wrote the best book, an artist's bible. It's called Color Choices. Also, the website HandPrint is a really helpful resource too, I've hardly touched the surface there. I'm learning so much by using all the artists I mentioned above, especially Roz Stendahl and Jane Blundell. Also, if you go to Jane's website (as opposed to her blog) and click on "Tutorials & Resources" you can learn SO MUCH about watercolors you'll amaze yourself. I'm still perusing it from time to time, trying to remember everything I'm reading at roz's and Jane's place. So, that's it for color theory today, aren't you glad you stopped by? LOL.

Oh, I forgot to mention, when I ordered the DS dots from Wet Paint I also had the happy coincidence of being able to pick up a couple of the Richardson Kids Palettes that Roz mentioned when I took Sketchbook Skool. These little gems are so cheap at less than three dollars each. You now have NO excuse not to take some watercolors with you when you go out to draw! All you do is pop out the kid paint and fill with eight of your own colors (warm+cool red, warm+cool blue, warm+cool yellow and two other colors, like sap green and Burnt Sienna or Payne's grey for instance= 8 colors). Ok, here, I'll help, here's a limited palette of the above that I would do after all this research...

warm yellow - quinacridone gold

cool/neurtral yellow - Hansa Yellow medium

warm red - Transparent Burnt Orange

cool red - Quinacridone Red OR Quinacridone Rose

warm blue - Ultramarine Blue

cool blue - Phthalo Blue OR Prussian Blue

extra color #1 - Sap Green

extra color #2 - Burnt Sienna

Talk soon? I won't be as wordy next time, promise! You will come back, right? I'll bring the coffee and chocolate, K? Ahh, I knew you could be bribed. ;o)Best,

Tuesday, August 19, 2014

I'm having a whole lot of fun drawing up all my pens and paint supplies. I got the idea to draw all my new pens from Tommy Kane and Jane Blundell. In fact, I'll probably repeat this process and do something a little more like Tommy's "Weapons of Choice" drawings. I love that he wrote stuff about the pens but I ran out of room when doing this drawing, lol. I do love how it came out though. I can see me doing drawing after drawing of my art supplies. Hey, I love buying them, I should at least get some great subjects to draw too!

I must admit, I don't yet own the Whiskey Painter's Palette, I just used the stock photo of it to add it to this drawing. As you can see I haven't even painted it up. I'll wait until I pick the watercolor paints I decide to use in it before I complete this page. This palette is so far the only thing on my Christmas list so I'm hopeful everyone around me will get the HINT. :o) I can't believe how fast my watercolors are running out so I guess I'm also going to have to add Daniel Smith Watercolors to that list... the palette will hold as many as twenty-four colors if you also use the center channel for half pans of paint. I'm probably going to go in that direction because I don't think I'd use the center channel for anything like brushes anyway. I have a pencil case for all that stuff so the channel might as well be filled with another eight half pans of paint!

(Click to Enlarge)

Anyway, I'm sure I'll be back soon with more art. There's always a list of stuff I want to try and get into my Moleskine. I think I could draw twenty-four seven and still not have enough time to get it all in. I think that's probably a good thing!Later alligator!Best,

Sunday, August 17, 2014

I've been waiting it seems like a year for this sequel to come out but it's really only been six months. How is that possible, huh? I guess I was totally excited to read it and it felt like time slowed down to a snail's pace, lol. I loved Kelley Armstrong's first book, "Omens", read my review here. I am so thrilled to be able to review a Kelley Armstrong book once again. "Visions", which comes out on August 19th is, once again, a mystery with paranormal twists. It's based in a little town called Cainsville where the central character Olivia Taylor-Jones lives. Olivia is a twenty-four year old woman who just found out (in the last book) that she was adopted and her real parents are notorious serial killers, Patricia and Todd Larson. Until this revelation in the last book, Olivia's life was idyllic. She was raised with a wealthy, sophisticated Chicago family who gave her an ivy league education. She had a fiancé who, himself, was a prominent and wealthy businessman on his way to becoming a senator. All of this crumbled the night reporters showed up on her mother's doorstep, hounding Olivia for information and how she felt about her birth parents. Olivia ran and ended up in Cainsville, a strange little town with interesting people that seemed inordinately protective of her and interested in her future."Visions" continues directly from the previous book "Omens". Olivia, still teaming up with her pit-bull lawyer, Gabrial Walsh, a sometimes morally wayward man with an unusual past of his own, continue to delve into the case of her parents' horrifying crimes. The pair are looking to prove the Larsons innocent of all wrong doing but there are sinister forces trying to actively prevent Olivia and Gabrial from succeeding.

Visions opens with Olivia stopping by her old mansion where she used to reside with her wealthy mother. Olivia is there to pick up a few things that she was unable to take with her when she left her old life so abruptly, on the run from the press. As she collects her laptop and some extra clothes she notices someone is sitting in her car! She surmises it's just another nosy and pushy reporter and goes to give them a piece of her mind. When she flings the car door open a dead body dressed up to resemble Olivia falls out. Is Olivia seeing a vision, an omen like she had started experiencing in the last few months or is there truly a dead body leaning out of her car? She calls Gabriel immediately as she runs into the house, securing the alarm and the deadbolt. So starts the mystery of the dead body.In this continuation of a great series that adds a soupçon of the paranormal to a spectacular mystery series, we follow Olivia and Gabriel on a meandering path as they try to find out why there is a dead body and what it has to do with Olivia. Through the mystery we learn huge amounts about our main characters, Olivia and Gabriel. Olivia's paranormal gifts are also explained, giving the reader a little more clarity about what might be going on in Cainsville.This was an excellent second book in an ongoing series. I found myself gobbling up the pages in huge chunks, staying up well past my bedtime unable to put the book down. Interestingly, Kelley Armstrong handles the paranormal aspect of this book expertly and doesn't force the reader into a head space that is unbelieving. I found myself actually considering the unusual possibilities of paranormal happenings as I was engrossed in the pages of this book. This is a spectacular summer read. It expertly combines mystery, intrigue, romance and paranormal events all in one very enjoyable book. My one problem is that I'm going to, once again, wait months to read another Kelley Armstrong Cainsville novel. Write fast Kelly, please write FAST!Best,Jenn

Saturday, August 16, 2014

Please scroll down for the newest Artist's Play Room Linky and enter your wonderful, creative artwork throughout this upcoming week.If you haven't read the rules & guidelines, please go here. If you've landed here after this challenge has been completed but would like to participate in a current or future Artist's Play Room Challenge, just either click on the APR button in the sidebar or click here and you'll be taken to the latest APR Challenge!

Are you having trouble using the Mr. Linky to add your submissions to APR? Well here's some help! Just click on HELP and you'll be taken to my Linky Help Page. Cool, huh? I've got your back!Best,

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Friday, August 15, 2014

Since I'm in the kitchen, did anyone want anything? LOL. This is my final homework for SBS (Sketchbook Skool). Tommy Kane taught the last week and he's all about the detail. I'm into that. I loved the assignment, go draw your kitchen, in all it's glory. My kitchen isn't glorious in any stretch of the imagination but I do love how the piece turned out. I love how Tommy gave us "permission" to not be perfect. Scale and perspective don't have to be spot on, in fact, some of the best paintings and drawings are made all the more interesting because the scale and perspective were off. Tommy pointed out that many of his favorite drawings of his own are the ones that went wonky but he kept on going and finished them anyway. That's his ONE rule. FINISH your work, don't give up on a drawing, no matter how wrong, wonky or just plain bad it is. You gotta love that rule. No perfection, just follow through. That I can do.

My Kitchen, blemishes and all!

We'll talk soon, I'm sure. Even though SBS is over I'll be keeping my journal up to date so there'll be much posting of artwork. I also have a book review coming in a few days, just gotta read the book first. LOL. Too bad you can't do popcorn with a book like you do a movie. The butter gets all over the Kindle. ;o)

Wednesday, August 13, 2014

This is my final homework for Roz's class on how to draw and paint animals. It's amazing the amount of information that woman can impart in one short class. So well worth the price to do SketchBook Skool. I never thought I could draw animals accurately. I've had artist friends who paint animals and I was always amazed at their skill. I thought, "I couldn't do that." How wrong I was! I just needed some confidence in my newly found skills and determination learned in SBS. I can't wait for the next course "Seeing" to start.

I started with the two main paintings I wanted to do of Berkley, my beautiful African Grey parrot. Then I added some more fun sketches and drawings of her fooling around. She loved to show how she could put her wings up so I had to add that drawing in. I was so thrilled at how well the sketch came out. It looks just like her, with all her feathers fluffed out. Finally, I had to add her favorite "teddy bear", her little pink pig. We called it LPP for short and she LOVED her so much! We bought her the toy when she was still a baby and it became her teddy bear, she wouldn't go to sleep without it. When we realized how much she relied on her LPP friend, we panicked, thinking... parrots can live more than fifty years! If she breaks that pig, we're DEAD!

We promptly scoured the pet shops for several exact copies, just in case but by that time, months after buying the first LPP, the brand had moved on to other animal shapes. Seriously, we went to every hole in the ground pet store and finally scraped up four extra Little Pink Pigs. We used to confuse her by putting two on her play pen. She'd go bite one (through the little heart on it's belly, perfect for a birdy beak) and then go kiss the other one, LOL.

Talk to ya'll soon, I have to do my homework first! Hehehe. Tommy Kane is the final teacher for the six week course and he LOVES detail. Go to his blog or buy his book to see the incredible artist he is. Oh, and by the way, ALL his art is done sans pencil. You heard me, right to pen, baby. No waffling for this guy. Oh and also, he never doesn't finish a drawing, even if it goes wonky. He always finishes. Yup, wow, kinda blows one's mind. I gotta go draw my kitchen now. *sigh* ;o)

Monday, August 11, 2014

I started learning about the colors in my palette a couple of days ago by mixing a bunch of greens, here's the post. When I finished Roz Stendahl's class I realized as I perused her blog, reading all about color theory, brush pens etc., that in fact, I really should change out my student watercolors for the artist colors I already own. I had been putting this off for two reasons. One, I figured I could use up the student colors that came with my travel Winsor & Newton palette because I was just fooling around and learning so why did it matter that I wasn't using artist quality paints. The other reason was that I KNEW it was going to be a long and arduous journey to get to a new artist grade palette and I was putting it off until I knew more about color.

(Artist Quality Reds)

Well, here's what happened, I kept reading Roz's blog. Bad idea if you want to stay lazy, lol. Roz recommends not even giving student quality paint to children! She makes the astute point that you'll just frustrate the budding artist when they try and mix colors and get mostly mud. Artist quality colors are much more forgiving and actually teach you what you need to know later to be a good artist. Mixing color is an art in and of itself so starting with sub-par paint just doesn't make sense.

The Yellows/Earths

Ok, so now I knew I had a huge amount of work on my hands. I had a great selection of artist grade watercolors (about 34 colors) but no idea which of those colors I wanted in my palette. I read the many pages from Roz about what was in her palette and why, I looked up Dion Dior because I know she did a spread about her travel palette and I also looked up Brenda Swenson for the same reason. Now I just had to get down to the business of learning which colors did what I wanted them to do. (Oh, I should have said, click on any and all of the photos to get a closer look, you may even be able to read my writing, lol No derogatory comments allowed about my handwriting, I'm left handed. ;o)

To start, I knew I wanted to mix one of my favorite colors, Payne's

(Greens & Blues)

Grey. I had learned that it is a mix of ultramarine blue and Burnt Sienna. I also knew I wanted to mix a black so I didn't have to carry it in my palette (there are only 12 spaces!). When I looked at other colors that I loved and hoped to have in my palette I wanted to thin the herd, so to speak, and learn to mix some of them. Like Mauve. I had learned that I could get a beautiful purpley color by mixing Opera pink with viridian and I also wanted to be able to mix a good orange since I didn't have any more orange at all, not even vermillion. So, those were the start of my goals. I figured I'd make it up as I went along after that.

Ultramarines & Other

I first tested all the colors, reds, yellows, earths, greens and blues... plus other colors I had hanging around, lol. Then I chose my favorite hues, at least one cool and one warm to do tests with to see which colors mixed well together. The first test was the Payne's gray and YAY, I successfully made my favorite W&N Paynes grey. Now for black. I know it's the same mix as Payne's grey but with less ultramarine and more burnt sienna. it took a little while, but SUCCESS!! I had black. On to testing out other blues to go in my palette and trying to mix orange, brown and a nice warm grey.

I found that the horizon blue seemed to be opaque and I know from Roz that all the cadmiums are also opaque and I want clear colors. If I wanted opaque I'd use gauche! I did get a beautiful Fuchsia by adding opera pink (Holbein) to quin red and I achieved two oranges, one a bright and the other a slightly burnt color, perfect! Now on to testing out how sap green mixed with the two reds I was waffling between. I found that the quin red and sap green make a gorgeous brown kind of like a burnt umber but a little warmer.

In the end, although I wanted to add yellow ochre and quin burnt orange to my palette, I ran out of room. I'm going to limit myself to the twelve color half pans for now but if in the near future I find I need or even miss a few colors, I'll add those into the slots that I marked on my final palette drawing. I actually could have another five weird spots for colors but I have to admit, the esthetics of it bother me. I know many do this but for now, it isn't a choice I'm gonna make. By the way, I may have gotten the pages out of order, so just look for the colors I mentioned on the test page to see the right color combinations. Some of them turned out quite beautiful.

I took the time to write down everything I did in a transcript-like section after all the paint testing so I could remember where I was if I decide to add or remove colors later. This is my final palette for now, or at least until I can afford the Whiskey Painter's Palette I want that allows for a maximum of 24 colors if you fill the center space with 8 extra half pans. It's an expensive palette, about $70 so it's on my Christmas list along with new paint from Daniel Smith to fill it, lol. Now I'm kinda out of most paint, filling my palette left me with significantly fewer tubes of fresh pretty paint to use. It is so beautiful though to be using artist grade watercolors again though. That's a good thing.

Anyway, I'll be back in the next day or two with a wonderful bit of art, a tribute to the beautiful parrot I used to have as a pet. Unfortunately, I became highly allergic to her after fourteen years of loving her, from her babyhood to her teen years. Now she's with a lovely older couple and I'm sure she's teaching them all the words and sentences she knows, including "want water" when she's thirsty! It'll be a great post so keep your eyes pealed. Talk soon, K? Great!!

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I'm a watercolor & mixed media artist who blogs about her adventure in paint. I also love to read so there's always a book or paintbrush in my hand. Hopefully my work speaks to you, makes you feel something. That would make me very happy indeed. Visit my Flickr account to see all my artwork. http://www.JenniferMcLean.com